he congregation as First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs has officially voted to leave the Presbyterian USA denomination.

The church plans to switch to a more conservative denomination called the Evangelical Covenant Order Of Presbyterians.

Leaders say its because of scriptural conflicts and the decision to allow openly gay ministers to be ordained. 95.5% of those who voted said First Pres.should leave Presbyterian USA.

There is also a financial aspect to the split. The congregation must pay $650,000 to keep worshiping in their church. It will be paid over a five-year period to their regional governing body Pueblo Presbytery. The official split won't happen until June. They must wait for the Pueblo Presbytery to grant them a "Gracious Dismissal."

Evangelical Covenant Order Of Presbyterians -- I've not heard of these. Has anyone? They're not PCUSA, but are they related to or believe in the same things as the PCA or the OPC or the EPC or the Covenant Prebystierans or the Evangelical Reformed Presbyterians or the Reformed Presbyterians or the Free Presbyterians or the Reformed Presbyterian General Assembly or the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the USA or the United Presbyterian Church in the Americas or the Upper Cumberland Presbyterian Church?

I don’t know but many of those denominations - the PCA, the OPC, the RPCA, and some of the others - share standards that mean an ordained man or a church member can move back and forth between the denominations with little fuss, based on whichever variant is close by. The differences amount to historical and geographical identities that the denominations don’t want to give up.

The only ones one the list you mentioned that I don’t think count for that is the EPC, which is newish and has some issues (I think they ordain deaconesses) and the Cumberland folk who I believe are Presbyterian in form of government but not reformed in doctrine.

not sure how there can be ‘scriptural conflicts’, afterall, ive always heard the bible is clear cut and easy for anyone to understand ‘if one opens his heart to the guidance of the holy spirit’, and that ‘scripture interprets scripture’, and blah, blah.....

why surely, the rock hard ‘scriptural’ idea of sola scriptura has been shown to be a perfect recipe of protestant unity in mind, soul, spirit, and maintains that which Christ prayed for, for all to be one....
hmmmmm.....

I am a Cumberland Presbyterian. We have revised our Confession of Faith off the Westminster COF at least two or three times. We split off from PC church USA in early 1800’s over several issues, primarily the doctrine of predestination, minister education requirements on the frontier and salvation of infants not of accountable age. There was an attempt where the denominations merged again in the late 1800’s, but they split for good in the early 1900’s and the PCUSA church took a large swath of our churches with them, along with our namesake college, Cumberland College of Lebanon, TN. The university now supported by our denomination is Bethel University of McKenzie, TN, plus Memphis Theological Seminary.

The Upper Cumberlands were a charismatic movement that broke off from the Cumberland church. I am not certain about this, but I am thinking this happened in maybe the 1940’s or 1950’s. The reason I say that is because a beloved minister that was pastor of our church back before my day was involved to some degree in the Upper Cumberland movement. That was according to my deceased Dad, who was a Cumberland Minister for 50+ years.

8
posted on 04/23/2012 6:28:24 AM PDT
by RatRipper
(I'll ride a turtle to work every day before I buy anything from Government Motors.)

not sure how there can be scriptural conflicts, afterall, ive always heard the bible is clear cut and easy for anyone to understand if one opens his heart to the guidance of the holy spirit, and that scripture interprets scripture, and blah, blah...

The “Covenant Order of Presbyterians” is basically for Presbyterians who are against homosexual ordination, but are fine with requiring Churches to have female ministers and elders(leaders).

Of the more conservative Presbyterian groups (PCA, ARP, OPC), only the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) allows female ministers or elders, and then, ONLY if a congregation elects to have them (and most congregations don’t...). Hence ECOP is basically what the mainline PCUSA was say, 30 years ago.

It is also unique in that it has 2 levels of membership, in that mainline churches can stay PCUSA, but be associated with ECOP, or they can elect to leave the PCUSA (and very likely be sued for their building...) and directly join ECOP.

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